Körmöczi Katalin szerk.: Historical Exhibition of the Hungarian National Museum 3 - From the End of the Turkish Wars to the Millennium - The history of Hungary in the 18th and 19th centuries (Budapest, 2001)

ROOM 14. Endurance, Compromise and Economic Boom "The Repudiation of That Which is Illegal is No Mere Option, But Rather an Obligation" (Ferenc Deák) (Katalin Körmöczi - Edit Haider)

Queen of England Hotel. For an appreciable time his door was open to friends only, but he took good care to keep alive the desire for liberty and independence in the national consciousness. This he formulated in a letter written to the editorial offices of the newspaper Pest Diary in 1858: "Primarily the task is to keep alive in the nation a sense and enthusiasm for constitutional liberty..." Artistic life was depressed and inhibited. Nevertheless, in this decade, too, lasting masterpieces of Hungarian literature were produced. By recalling the great distant national past, they sang of the magnificent recent past and its tragedy. All this is well exemplified by manuscripts by Madách, Vörösmarty and Arany, and a few first editions of their works. The celebrations organized in 1859 to mark the 100th anniversary of Ferenc Kazinczy's birth marked a turning-point and represented a stimulus not only to artistic and literary life, but political life also. The events of the Kazinczy Centenary and the anonymous speaking out by the hermit of Döbling, István Széchenyi, who subsequently committed suicide, occasioned social and political activity. Hungarian society sensed the crisis of absolutism. As well as the political stances within the borders of the country - the activity of an aristocracy inclined to compromise, of a liberal lesser nobility holding aloof, and of artistic and intellectual circles which were keeping national consciousness alive -, there were also the emigres who represented an important domestic and foreign policy factor. After 1859, a change in the power relations between the two parts of the empire, the Austrian part and the Hungarian part, and in Europe generally, could not be long delayed. The October Diploma, a basic law intended for the peoples, was issued on October 20, 1860. It was a recognition of the failure of absolutism, and at the same time a document of agreement with the conservative aristocracy. It combined absolutist, federalist and centralizing endeavours, and guaranteed the power of the absolutist monarch, power exercised by constitutional institutions. It brought back the Council of Lieutenancy, the Chancellery and the county system. Furthermore, it restored Hungarian as the language of the administration and promised to convene the Parliament. Hungarian aristocrats could again hold offices. In Hungary the Diploma was rejected everywhere except in conservative circles. After the failure of the conservative compromise experiment, another centralizing attempt was made, with the February Patent and the Schmerling Interlude. For the Habsburg empire, the February Patent counted as a liberal constitution. It ensured constitutionalism to the AustroGerman middle class, but did not take account of the Hungarian constitution or of Hungarian historical traditions. It governed Hungary in an absolutist fashion, denying the Hungarians everything the October Diploma had given them. It was in these circumstances that the Hungarian Parliament was convened for the first time since 1849. In calling it, the Court's aim was to get the October Diploma and the February Patent passed into law, and to have Francis Joseph crowned king of Hungary. If there was no coronation, dissolution of the Parliament was planned. Among the members of the House of Deputies of the Parliament convened in 1861 there were those who had adopted the demands of the